LAGERFELD'S FORGOTTON BIRTHDAYS

KARL LAGERFELD has shrugged off rumours that he has lied about his age ahead of his birthday tomorrow. The German fashion impresario is planning to celebrate his 65th birthday this week, but an investigation by German newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, allegedly discovered a birth registry in Hamburg that states he was born in 1933, not 1938. "If I were really 70, then it would be even better," Lagerfeld told The Daily Telegraph. "I would be a phenomenon and it would be the best publicity for my diet book. I don't see myself as a young man, I belong to no generation." Lagerfeld's book, 3D, was published last year as a step by step guide to how he lost more than seven stone to transform himself into a super-slim version of his former self. Despite his protestations though, old friends claim that tomorrow really is the big 70. "We all know Karl is 70," an old school friend, Johann Lesco, told the German paper. "But if he says he's 65, it doesn't bother me." (September 9 2003, AM)